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I have a horrible personal experience on this topic. I lived this nightmare. Quite literally it almost killed me. I could go off on a true tangent on this subject. I could get very emotional. I won't. I think what happened to me happened so I can help others. If my story helps one person, than my pain is worth it. Everyone says that. I know. Complete cliche, right. But I am telling the truth. When you read my story, you will know my words come quite literally, from the HEART.

To begin, I am female. I have always been an athlete and in great shape. In high school, I ran track. In high school and college, I played softball, volleyball, and basketball. I have done martial arts for over 20 years. I am a decorated veteran of Desert Shield/Storm. I am a marathon runner, a triathlete, and a rock climber.
A lot of that changed for me in a period of 3 days about 2 years ago. I woke up one morning and I just felt "off." I didn't have my normal energy level. I had absolutely no appetite. My back hurt. I thought I had the flu. I didn't think it was a big deal. I took a two aspirins and kept about my day. That night, I went running with a group of my Air Force friends. About 3 miles into our 5 mile run, I started sweating horribly. My back was killing me. I started having drive heaves. Of course, my friends who know and love me started freaking out. I don't get sick. If I do, I don't pay much attention to it. My friends know that. So, to see me puking and in agony scared them as much, if not more, than it did me. They literally carried me to the nearest car, put me in the back seat and drove the Indy 500 to the ER. Please note, they took me to a major league, highly reputed hospital in Texas. So, my story is not the result of going to a "bad" ER. At the hospital, nurses started an IV. They gave me phenergan for the nausea. They gave me morphine for pain. I waited about an hour to be seen, in spite of the acute symptoms. After the wait, I saw the first intern who almost did me in. He simply wouldn't listen to me. I kept telling him that while the morphine and the phenergan were helping me, something else was going on. My friends kept telling him that I am not a person who complains. They told him I hate hospitals, and I would have let them take me there is there wasn't a HUGE problem. He told me I had a stomach ache. It was something I ate. I told him that was a big problem because I hadn't eaten anything. He gave me another

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